Report from Madagascar Feb/Mar 2019 (2): Wild Pepper Conservation
The Second report from Madagascar is about wild pepper conservation.
Green pepper is cultivated in agroforestry plantation of the cooperative, but wild pepper is not. Wild pepper is one of endemic species and is harvested in only natural forest. There are 4 species in wild pepper in Madagascar and two of them are tasty. These have aromatic flavour which general pepper doesn’t have.
Left: general pepper, Right: wild pepper
Firstly, I was taken to their nursery farm. Pepper grows on a vine and can be applied cutting propagation. Lots of nursery plants were cultivated under the shade of the roof made by palm leaves. The nurseries will be transplanted in agroforestry.
Nursery plants of wild pepper and the farm owner
I thought that it would be not so difficult to cultivate wild pepper in agroforestry as they already have achieved nursery cultivation, however they have challenges. I secondly visited an agroforestry plantation where wild pepper nurseries were experimentally transplanted and found that some of the nurseries thrived but more nurseries did not. Aristy who introduced the plantation to me said that they weren’t sure about the reason for it, and had been trying to find good conditions for its growth. Be that as it may, as there are wild peppers growing in the plantation, I think we can have an optimistic view for the future.
wild pepper transplanted in agroforestry plantation
Aristy who introduced the conservation activities. He studies at university and at the same time he is one of the core members of the activity.
Vanilla is one of the most important imported crops of Madagascar, especially with the rapid rise of its price. However, Madagascar also has lots of other attractive crops. The cooperative has many species in their agroforestry plantation. I want to import cinnamon, cloves, peppers and so on near in the future. Now they have only “wild” wild pepper, they will have “cultivated” wild pepper in few years and be able to provide it stably.
In the next blog, I will go to a national park at Andasive and will show you rare creatures of Madagascar!!